The funny thing about pop culture is how the strangest things can blow up – for instance, the novelty of speeding up song vocals and passing them off as a band of singing rodents. Alas, those entertainments which so charmed our forefathers and mothers back in the ‘50s and ‘60s haunt us to the day thanks to digital effects and good old-fashioned bean-counting. How else could we explain away the modern-day phenomena of 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' and their newly delivered 'Squeakquel'?

The effects are better now than they were in 2007, which is to say that our heroes can give more convincing wedgies and receive more realistic swirlies than ever before. The Chipmunks – Alvin, Simon and Theodore (voiced indistinguishably by Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney) – still sing high-pitched covers of already aggravating pop songs, and they’re now joined in doing so by the Chipettes (voiced interchangeably by Anna Faris, Amy Poehler and Christina Applegate).

Between concerts, they run the gamut of plot clichés (given that our inexplicably popular heroes are now inexplicably dropped into high school, Alvin is quick to take up with the jocks, whose crucial football game happens to be the same night as the critical school concert that’ll save their music program from budget cuts) and toss off their expectedly inexplicable cultural references (because today’s kids are just so down with Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, The Silence of the Lambs and “Entourage”).

Their guardian, Dave (Jason Lee), is very quickly incapacitated thanks to a stage accident, leaving him to shoot as few scenes as possible before handing the reins over to clumsy nephew Toby (Zachary Levi, who I’m assured is much more affable and much less irritating on TV’s “Chuck”). Back for seconds is David Cross as evil band manager Ian Hawke, whose first scene requires him to declare that the Chipmunks took everything away from his character but his dignity before having him diving into a nearby dumpster to find some breakfast. (This, it should be said, is not Cross’ most embarrassing moment.)

The ensemble, live-action or otherwise, is left under the dutiful direction of Betty Thomas, who last directed for Fox a high school comedy (John Tucker Must Die) and a talking animal comedy (Doctor Dolittle) and could therefore combine the two this time around. She does, and despite having brought out the nostalgia clash in 1995’s Brady Bunch update, Thomas and the film’s three writers are content with letting their jokes range from Dutch oven gags to Dodgeball quotes.

I’m not sure that there’s much more to say. If your children find this kind of thing cute, it should tide them over. If you find this kind of thing cute, I would just rather not know.